Shrimp and snow peas stir fry

Remember my recent post that included a reasonably priced bag of frozen shrimp?

Well...we're moving and I needed to use it up.

This was sort of what I had in mind...it made me crave white wine.

I stopped at the store and was noticed a slight drop in produce prices now that spring has arrived.

Trying to buy as little as possible for this meal, I grabbed a lemon, a bag of snow peas and a small pack of bean sprouts.  THAT WAS IT!  Less than $6.00 later...for the meal items, I'm not including wine there...and you don't need to know how much I spend at that store...

We already had the garlic and the brown and wild rice.  Veg oil, onions, had those too.  Strangley enough we had a small bottle of wite wine vinegar ini the pantry from a previous recipe attempt.  We also already had the coriander in a grinder.  At the least minute I threw in some slivered almonds I snagged at the Bulk Barn!

Salt and pepper?  Check!

Boil rice.  Fry onion and garlic in a pan in veg oil.

Toss in the thawed shrimp, handful of sprouts, handful of snow peas, splash of lemon juice and coriander ground up.  Add a tablespoon of butter or marg if you like a thicker sauce. 

Insert white wine here...or in the pan if you wish.

Add some white wine vinegar if you want some zip...but it's fine without it too.

S & P to taste.

Heat pan until aromatic (makes the house smell yummy) and serve on rice (drained)!

You can eat this with chopsticks if you like to add flare to a meal...but its not required.

Enjoy!

A Lifetime Supply of Coriander...

Weeks ago I posted that I had discovered a wonderful surprise...a huge tree of cilantro we never expected.  It sprung from a plant we had placed there 2 years ago!  Its nice to have the cilantro for fresh summer salads.  It pairs so perfectly with fresh tomatoes.  This season was hot and quick...so sadly it went to flower pretty quickly. 

Actually that's not such a bad thing...

Cilantro flowers are my most favorite thing...because once the flowers fall, the little green balls form...

Then they turn ligjht brown!  They are now called coriander.  Once the plants and seeds are quite dried, gently pull the tree right out of the ground and insert into a plastic bag, seeds end goes in first.

When you are sitting watching the clouds go by on a mild fall day, or inside watching a great movie on the couch...you can separate these dried seed balls off and store them for a loooooooong time.  We filled a small pepper grinder with coriander 2 years ago (the last time we grew the herb).  We are still working our way through it and its one of my most favorite herbs.  You grind the seeds much like you do with peppercorns. 

The result is a wonderfully lemony flavour!  I use it as a flavour enhancer to a lot of simple dishes like home made hummus, a salad topping, a pick me up for roasted potatoes.  Just about anything you could put lemon juice on...try coriander instead.  Don't get me wrong, I love lemon juice in a dish...but sometimes I like the texture the cracked coriander seeds bring to a meal too.  (If you're interested...its like a calorie-free way to boost the flavour of your dish, but without the added sweetness, moisture content or acidity)

Wikipedia says of coriander, "Coriander, like many spices, contains antioxidants, which can delay or prevent the spoilage of food seasoned with this spice. A study found both the leaves and seed to contain antioxidants, but the leaves were found to have a stronger effect."  It goes to to state that cilantro leaves contains Vitamin A and C, small amounts of protein and fiber.   Both the spice and the herb have been used widely all over the world throughout history.  Traces of the plant itself were found in the tomb of Tutankhamen.

PS.  Coriander also travels well.  It survived better than the lemon I tried to bring home from Ottawa in my suitcase! 

I'M BACK, BABY!!!

The weeds you never knew about....

Not that the title suggests, this is not a post about coriander or cilantro being weeds. 

This post is about the happy accidents we encounter in our garden.  We tried herbs right in the main garden patch, but they turned into shrubery.  We tried them in pots, but their roots found their way out of the pot.  Those herbs were anchored to the earth on which they sat.  Last year, we tried herbs in pots again with very little success.  I was about to give up.  As for trial-and-error gardening, its fun but it does present some challenges.  We have the herbs now in the claw foot tub.  Sadly, I added too much peat to the tub and the herbs have had very little moisture retention (Lately we've had plenty of moisture, but it doesn't seem to last very long in the claw foot).

I noticed that my hubbie was weeding the garden, but being selective about it.  He stopped plucking the purslane.  He also stopped picking the random tomatoes that were rising from the compost!  My facebook page will have images of my rows that are quite disturbed with "extras mato plants".  I love the free tomatoes, i love the free plants....but they have a bad habit of  taking over the things we've actually planted in rows.  Especially rogue cherry tomato plants...they get viney!




The white brackets are to show you where the weed was on the purslane pathway to our composter



Hubbie noticed an odd looking weed one day and decided to leave it to see if we could identify it.  A week or so passed before we checked on it again.  The leaves smelled like Thrills gum...or soap...which is a tell-tale sign you've got cilantro growing!  I am not a crazy fan over cilantro, the key ingredient in pico de gallo.  I am, however, a GIANT fan of coriander...which is the seed of the cilantro plant.  We grew it 2 years ago and are still enjoying ground coriander in everything from hummus to fresh caught fish.  I have so much growing accidentally in the garden that I may just start selling it.  Anyone have an in with a supplier of restaurant grinders?  

  



This year's cilantro is already flowering...hot days will do that to a herb



You can pick the leaves of the cilantro plant up until the hot air forces it to flower.  After that time, the flavour of the leaves is more intense, almost bitter.  



This is just a small close up on the big bush covered with seeds!



Almost a week after we noticed the delicate white flowers emerge, then they started to wither and die off.  The best was yet to come...the flowers die and a small green ball emerges over time.  After the plant starts to die off...you can harvest the balls, now a brownish colour, and grinder away to your hearts content.  It must be the quintessential winter lemon flavour.  For if you want a hint of lemon in a dish when you don't want to send on winter lemons from who knows where...add coriander!

I just love figuring out ways to include more spices in my meals, but this was a happy bonus this year...the cilantro we planted two years ago emerged and now we'll be silly with coriander for years to come.

Now what are we going to do with the cilantro/coriander I planted this year?!?!

What herbs have you tried growing?



Purslane stir fry....dig in!

Tonite was a special foraged meal....because it proves just how much we've learned during this whole gardening thing. 

We used to bust our backs weeding for hours and hours.  (I'm strange though....I LOVE weeding)  The point being we discovered (by way of Brigitte Mars, master herbalist) that what we thought were weeds, were actually purslane!  At the end of last season, we left some of the stranger looking weeds to grow.  The purslane flowered these cute little yellow flowers here and there.  That's what helped me identify them officially.  The are chubby stalks with meaty leaves.  The stalks are green or red depending on the type of purslane it is.  It turns out we have an obsene amount of sea purslane in our garden and its all edible.


Our radish row that has more purslane than radish.


We created something...as you may find yourself doing the more you garden.


Purslane stir fry

 It started with simmering 1/2 a cup of diced white onions in veg oil until clear.

Then we added diced orange peppers and diced ham (we had to eat our ham up tonite...but next time I would use almonds instead!).  Approx. 1/2 cup of each.

I dumped in a cup and a bit of pre cooked wild 5 grain rice from the bulk barn.  It added a wonderful nutty taste to the fry up.  Simmer on med for about 5 min.  I splashed in a lid and a half of lemon juice.  A couple of grind from our coriander grinder (grown 2 years ago and getting low!) and a dash of red pepper flakes.  S & P to taste.  Then we added a generous handful of washed, rinsed and spun purslane.


How much for that purslane in the window?

The purslane is already quite peppery so I could have left out the black pepper.  The salt made the purslane taste almost like edamame (steamed salted soya beans)!  We already tried it cold in a previous post.  When raw it tastes like spinach and pepper's lovechild.  It tastes even more healthy in salads than spinach (and I am a hardcore spinach fan). When cooked, purslane tastes like spinach crossed with a legume.

All in all, I'm considering taking purslane to the farmer's market and setting up a stand...samples daily.  Its so versatile and we've only just begun to figure out the possibilities.

Please, send me you purslane recipes...if you have any.  Or if you choose to experiment with this years weeds, let me know what you come up with.  We're up for anything!

Check out my facebook page too...there are bi-weekly picture updates of our garden this year.  The occassional tip or trick.  Sometimes additional recipe pictures too!  You never know what you're gonna find.  My facebook community has been a source of information as well as support.  Thanks guys and dolls!      

When the times are tough....

I hope everyone survived the holiday season!  It was a crazy mess of food and celebration for our family.  Definitely worth every minute!

But now that the celebrations are through...you may be under a whole lotta unexpected debt.  One of the fortunate things about being unemployed is that we didn't go crazy this year.  We aren't in too deep, because we've been living on a shoestring since last March.  Its almost become a badge of honour for me, at least.  Look how little I used to make (fill in the blank)!  I've become proud of the meals and snacks I've made using the leftovers or frozen goods we stored from our garden.  I know, pride goeth before the fall...but there are times when I feel like pride is appropriate.

Each New Year I make a new resolution.  I try to build on each previous year's resolution.  I am trying to make baby steps to gently change my lifestyle.  If you try too much, all at once, you are destined to fail.

Last year I promised myself I wouldn't eat any more store bought salad dressings...of course I made this resolution after I realized how stinking easy they are to make!!!  I have been making balsamic vinigrette for over a year now.  Its an endless source of happiness for me, as I adore salads. 

Today I went to make my typical lunch time salad...only to find that I had used up my Balsamic vinegar!!!!  WHAT DO I DO NOW!?!?  Well...i turned to the white vinegar as an alternative.  White vinegar is something we have in bulk.  I only clean with vinegar, so we go through it like it was water.  (Thank goodness its cheap!)

So I freehanded this recipe and it was so lovely I thought I would share it!

This recipe is chock full of healthy things that your body need....plus it tastes fresh and yummy!

3/4 cup of Sunflower Oil
4 tbsp of white vinegar
4 tbsp lemon juice (i use concentrate...but fresh is obviously better)
1 tsp of dijon mustard
2 cloves garlice (pressed in garlice press)
1/2 tsp of ground coriander (we grew it last year in our garden, dried the seeds and keep them in a grinder)
dash of kosher or sea salt (for highest mineral content)

wisk and pour over salad greens

Now will I get more balsamic when the funds permit?  YES!  But this was a great substitute when you are living on a budget.  Dijon mustard tastes healthier than the yellow version and it lasts a long time.  Definitely a good value.  I buy the garlic locally from a guy we see every weekend at the Famrer's Market here in Verona.  Sunflower Oil is a nice light oil and very healthy for you.  You could substitute canola oil but I find that olive oil is a bit too intense for this recipe.  You could also change up the spice to your liking.  I just adore the lemony flavour of coriander...but I did consider using basil or parsley.  Whatever you like!  You can tailor this recipe based on what you grow in your garden!  Or what your taste buds like....

Experiment today!

Check back for the upcoming contest where you could win a copy of "The All-You-Can-Eat Gardening Handbook" of your very own!!!